


Honor Keeper

by DachOsmin



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Guilt, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Ritual Sex, Self-Sacrifice, Shame, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 17:35:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11445717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: Mer Aisava lets out a hysterical laugh. “You cannot mean to suggest that we subject the emperor to this- this-““Of course not.” Beshelar feels a curious lightness about him, as if he is floating, his own words coming from somewhere beyond him. “But the ceremony need not be performed by the emperor. He can appoint a champion in his place.”





	Honor Keeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aansero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aansero/gifts).



Edrehasivar turns his eyes to the problem of the Evressai Steppes with the same single-minded stubbornness that he has applied to every other problem he’s encountered as emperor. The High Witch of the Nazhmorhathveras is contacted, missives are sent and received, and through shear bullish persistence and a screaming match lasting three hours, the Corazhas is terrorized into propping up an armistice.

The border raids cease and the men of the Anmur’theileian stop their reprisals, until all that is left is the signing of an official treaty, and then peace.

Truly there is no reason for the emperor to go to the Steppes himself to sign the treaty, as his advisors explain with varying degrees of exasperation. But Edrehasivar sets his mouth in that way of his, the one that all who know him have long since learned means no quarter will be given. “We will not ask these men to lay their lives in our hands without giving them the chance to see that we are honest in our intentions,” he says.

And so the emperor and his court make the journey from Cetho, traveling by river barge up the Istandaartha to Ezho, and then along the Evressa by carriage once the river becomes too narrow and swift to navigate safely. Most of the travelers seem to enjoy the journey, whether it be that they are eager to see new lands, eager to bring justice, or, in the case of the young emperor, both.

Lieutenant Deret Beshelar is very aware that he is the exception to the rule.

This is not his first visit to the steppes. There’s never been a reason to tell the emperor, but he served in the Evressai for two years before transferring to the Untheileneise Guard. Of the memories he has of his time there, almost all are bitter.

He knows how the scrubland drinks the blood of dying men, and how corpses pucker and burst beneath the unforgiving western sky. He knows the terror of rustling grasses and the tinkling of bells on the night wind: the too-late sign of a barbarian ambush.

And even beside the horrors of war there are the steppes themselves. The land stretches out in an infinite sea of white grass, with nary a tree or river to curb it. The sky is too big: vast and howling like it could descend and swallow him at any time if it wished to do so.

As he huddles in the imperial carriage alongside Edrehasivar, Cala, and Mer Aisava, he steels himself as best he can. He knows he has no skill at dissembling; even at the edge of the Badlands his discomfort must be writ plain on his face. Luckily Maia is too entranced by the novelty of new lands to notice anything but the strange birds and beasts that pass by in the distance. Cala surely guesses something is wrong, but then Cala has an uncanny ability to ascertain every thought he has based on nothing more than the position of his ears and the way he drinks his tea in the morning. Mer Aisava likely already knows the root of his discomfort, as he is fairly certain Mer Aisava knows everything.

Regardless, they do not ask and he does not offer, and so as the carriage travels onward into the west he stares out the window, watching the craggy hills of the Badlands turn to the white scrub grass of the steppes, and feeling his heart sinking with every mile.

*

Despite Beshelar’s misgivings the Emperor’s arrival at the treaty-camp goes smoothly, as do the first few days of treaty negotiations. Oh, there is posturing and bristling on both sides; he would expect no less- but as far as Beshelar can tell the Nazhmorhathveras are as smitten by Edrehasivar as everyone else is, though they keep their faces stony and expressionless by habit.

His own face is a mask, he hopes. Even the look of the barbarians sets him shivering: the wicked length of their teeth, the unnatural colors of their hair, and worst of all, the blood eyes of their witches that seem to linger on him, tracking his every move. He says nothing. He has a duty to serve, and so serve he will.

By the second week, Edrehasivar has a treaty ready for signing, a Nazh chieftain’s son is giving him language lessons every afternoon, and no one on either side of the cultural divide has been stabbed, dismembered, or otherwise seriously injured. So why is Beshelar a mess of nerves?

He wakes from a fearful dream full of indistinct faces and long sharp teeth on the twelfth day, crying out as he throws his blankets away and grasps for his sword.

Cala gives him an odd look from the other side of the tent. “Art well? Is there anything-“

“Fine,” he says gruffly, because Cala’s eyes are too sharp and too knowing sometimes, and if he gives an inch everything will come spilling out. He needs to hold himself together until this trip is over, until they leave this godsforsaken wasteland and he can breathe without tasting blood on his tongue.

Ignoring that worried look in Cala’s eyes, he pulls on his uniform and hurries out of the tent in what is absolutely not a retreat. He dithers briefly on where to go before realizing his feet have already decided on the principle meeting tent. He has no reason to go; it’s not his shift. But the alternative is sitting in his tent with Cala and his questions, or else wandering outside and trying to ignore the howling wind of the steppes beating at the canvas tents like a cat in search of a mouse.

The principle tent is a gargantuan construction of felt and bone, squatting in the midst of the camp and overshadowing everything around it. The felt is dyed the color of the night sky, and the bone lattices are threaded with bells. For luck, their hosts have explained. To Beshelar, the faint chimes on the wind sound like mournful voices.

He pulls the entrance flap back to see that the tent is mostly empty. The desks where the bureaucrats have scribbled out draft after draft of the damnable treaty are bare. No one is sitting at the high table where the emperor has been given a place of honor among the Nazh clan heads and the witches. Most of the lanterns are dark.

One, however, is yet lit. In the back of the tent Beshelar can make out Mer Aisava hunched over a stack of papers. His eyes are bruised with shadow and his braids, held up with an inky quill, have begun to come undone. Deret has a sneaking suspicion he’s been there all night. As he must: Mer Aisava has been in the vanguard of this fray fought with pens and ink and tomes of elvish law thick enough to kill a man. This fray in which he can do nothing to help.

He clears his throat. “Good day, Mer Aisava.”

Mer Aisava blinks up at him owlishly. “If you seek the emperor, he is at a tea with our hosts.”

“No, we… we only wished to sit.”

He raises eyebrow. “Ah. Sit then.”

Beshelar threads his way through the tables and stools of the room to Mer Aisava’s desk. He spares it a glance before sitting down; it’s covered with a mess of papers scribbled with Ethuverazhin and Nazhmorhathveraszhin both. A cold cup of tea is perched haphazardly at the edge of one stack; Beshelar fights the urge to steady it.

He coughs instead. “Tell us, how goes the treaty?”

Despite his clear exhaustion Mer Aisava manages a smile. “It seems that Serenity will have his peace.”

And no more men will have to die here. Why then, does he still feel so ill at ease?

“What were the terms of the peace,” he finds himself asking. Truly, what does it matter: he has no training in diplomacy or statecraft, to say if a treaty is good or bad. All he has is a soldier’s conviction: peace is always better than war.

Mer Aisava raises one perfectly manicured eyebrow. Beshelar realizes with a hint of guilt that he’s certainly never shown an interest in the man’s duties before. But luckily Csevet’s enthusiasm for his work eclipses any misgivings he has, and with a soft laugh he hefts the papers in search of the right sheaf of parchment. Deret is struck by the absurdity of this world they live in: such a small things, golems of ink and paper, have the power to stop wars.

“Tis a complicated agreement, made worse by the issues of translation- do you speak Nazhmorhathveraszhin?”

“A bit. Not much.” He can say death, kill, blood, wound. He knows all of the curses, most of the insults, and how a Nazh boy sounds when he’s dying and pleading for his mother.

He does not know the word for hello.

Mer Aisava watches him for a moment before going back to the treaty. He hums, skimming his fingers over each of the articles. “In any case, the terms: we will give the Anmur’theileian back, in exchange for a bit of land along the Evressa that they have no use for. The border raids stop, and we gain access to the northern caravan route with a fifteen percent tariff levied on domestic goods and a twenty percent on imports. They gain water rights to the lower Evressa, with the provision that no dams be placed that would disturb the salmon hatcheries at the Peshero fords.”

He pauses and offers Beshelar a wry grin. “The economic points go on for another twelve pages, and judging from that glaze on your eyes we shall spare you the details.”

“No, it’s all very-“

“Are a terrible liar, Lieutenant. But in any case, the only other proviso is a formal peace ceremony that the Nazhmorhathveras have insisted be done before the emperor returns to the capital.”

A ceremony. Surely they cannot mean- “What ceremony?” and the roughness in his voice matches the sudden pounding of his heart.

Mer Aisava frowns and shuffles through the papers. “We wrote it down here somewhere- phonetically of course; we confess we have no idea how to spell most of the words in their damnable language. Ah- Csadanka? Sichenaka?”

The horror comes with a peculiar remove, as if felt by some other person. He experiences it like a missed step on a staircase: the sudden shock as the world shifts around him, and the fear as he goes plunging through. “Suzhanzhca,” he says at last. The taste of it seem to cling to the inside of his mouth. He’s overcome with the urge to spit.

When he looks up, Mer Aisava is watching him. “We thought you didn’t know Nazhmorhathveraszhin.”

“We know enough.”

Mer Aisava sets down the treaty and leans over the desk towards him. “Lieutenant,” and there is new urgency in his voice. “We agreed to put this proviso into the treaty because we believed it to be entirely ceremonial in nature: an empty gesture of goodwill. If you know aught to the contrary… it is vital to the safety of the Elflands that you disclose that information.”

He swallows. “We have never seen it ourselves, only heard tell of it. So perhaps we are mistaken, and indeed, we hope we are. But when we served on the Steppes, we once asked one of the Barbarian captives what would be necessary for peace. And… they told us of the Suzhanzhca.” Beshelar well can remember the captive’s bitter laugh, the way his long teeth had glittered in the torchlight.

“Yes, but what is it, lieutenant?”

“It is a barbaric thing they practice. To show that their commitment to an agreement is sincere, the leader who has asked for the agreement must give up what is most precious to him- his honor.

“What,” Mer Aisava spits, “does that mean?”

Gods and goddesses both, must he spell this out? “He must allow the others to do with him as they will. He must allow his honor to be taken away, and treated as no man should be. He must let them… utterly defile him.”

Across the table, silence. When Beshelar dares to open his eyes, he sees Mer Aisava’s hands are white knuckled fists amidst the wreck of his papers, his face a stony mask.

At last, Mer Aisava breaks the silence with a shuddered sigh. “We will have to break the treaty,” he whispers.

Deret doesn’t need to be a diplomat to see the ruin writ in those words. Fury in the Steppes. Edrehasivar’s political capital, gone. Another generation of elvish boys marched off to die under the unforgiving western sun. “We cannot,” he croaks.

Mer Aisava lets out a hysterical laugh and flings his papers up in the air. “You cannot mean to suggest that we subject the emperor to this- this-“

Beshelar watches with detached fascination as one of the offending papers twirls down to land on the desk in front of him. “Of course not.” He feels a curious lightness about him, as if he is floating, his own words coming from somewhere beyond him. “But the Suzhanzhca need not be performed by the emperor. He can appoint a champion.”

Mer Aisava is silent. And then he lets his eyes fall shut and leans his head back. His hands, Beshelar notes, are trembling. “We shall do it.”

_“No.”_

Mer Aisava’s eyes fly open and he fixes Beshelar with a wrathful glare. “Dost thou thinkest me some fair courtier, with no sense of duty to spare?” he hisses. “Or else that my honor is not up to such a task? Just because I am no soldier, thinkest I cannot fight to protect my emperor?” He swallows and stares into the lantern flame, avoiding Beshelar’s eyes. “I was a courier, once. I know well what it means to… submit.”

There is a story here he has no right to, and cannot ask after. But the hazy outlines of it are jagged and painful in his mind.

He will not allow such a thing to come to pass again. He cannot.

Protecting Edrehasivar is his duty. Protecting Csevet is something else entirely.

“I do not doubt thy honor, nor thy… ability,” he finally says. “But the Suzhanzhca must be performed by a warrior, else the ritual is considered profaned.” The rest he keeps quiet: that he cannot bear to stand by and let Csevet suffer so when he might spare him. He takes a deep breath. “I shall do it myself.”

Csevet is silent. At long last he sighs, and finally meets Beshelar’s eyes. “Is there no one else?”

Beshelar shakes his head. “The ritual is meant to deprive me of my honor. But what honor would I have left if I allowed another to suffer in my place?”

*

The week until the ceremony passes by like a dream. He guards Edrehasivar through meetings and banquets and teas, sleepwalking through most of it. Cala hovers in the background with increasing concern, but he knows better than to broach the subject with Beshelar.

Beshelar almost imagines he dreamed the thing up completely, until another last minute treaty negotiation makes it all very real.

He is on duty at the right side of the Emperor, listening to Mer Aisava explain that yes, they are committed to the treaty in its entirety.

“…including the Suzhanzhca, and the Emperor Edrehasivar is proud to be represented in this by his champion Lieutenant Deret Beshelar.”

Beshelar jerks to attention when he hears his own name and looks over in time to see Mer Aisava gesturing at him with a flourish. He straightens his back and masks his face, does his best to appear the best soldier the Nazhmorhathveras could imagine. Iron, Stone, no bit of weakness or fear in him. For if they do not find him acceptable choice, if they wish for Edrehasivar himself… he stands even straighter, clenching every muscle in his body until they burn.

The red eyes of the Nazh high-witch rake over Deret like hot coals. “And is he an honorable man?”

Edrehasivar, bless him, seems to take the question as an insult. “Honorable? Why, he is first among our soldiers! He is our most trusted protector; he bears the scar of a blade taken for us. We assure you, we know of no man more honorable and true than Lieutenant Beshelar.”

The witch seems unconvinced- or perhaps he always look like that- but finally nods his head in assent. “He will do. Who will witness? You, Emperor?”

Terror seizes him- he has a duty to protect Edrehasivar, but he cannot bear for the emperor to witness this, to see him so abased. He opens his mouth-

“His serenity will spend the evening in solitary prayer, praying for the health of our two nations,” Mer Aisava says smoothly. “We shall witness the ceremony in his stead.”

There are voices, then. Murmurs in Nazhmorhathverazhin, Edrehasivar stridently vouching for Mer Aisava’s character, sounds of agreement- but Beshelar cannot hear any of it over the buzzing in his ears. This is happening. This is real. When the emperor stamps his seal on the treaty, it sounds like a sentence.

*

The appointed night comes. Beshelar leaves his tent a candle after sunset and walks to the edge of the camp, Csevet a silent presence at his side.

All the most important Nazh ceremonies take place under a clear night sky- births and deaths and weddings. The Suzhanzhca is no different. The Nazhmorhathveras have built a ring on the outskirts of the camp, cleared a swath of grass to the dirt below and marked the boundaries of the clearing with threads of those damnable bells.

There is no light but Cstheio’s cold eyes far above. It must feel very holy for the Nazh warriors and witches with their night-sight.

But Beshelar can see little but the pale shapes of the barbarian warriors shifting around the edges of the clearing, the gleam of long teeth and pale eyes flashing in the dark.

He swallows, and waits. And as he waits he thinks.

There are things he knows about himself, the things that make up the foundations of his life. He is a good soldier. He is an honorable man.

He will not be, after tonight. Who does that make him? What is left of him?

Csevet rests a hand on his shoulder. “All will be well,” he whispers. It is the kind of soothing lie one tells a child. He shrugs Csevet’s hand away.

A cluster of Nazh melt out of the darkness on the other side of the ring. First comes a witch- one of the elders, judging by the lines on her face. Her eyes are the red of blood on snow, her hair is dyed the indigo of a starless night. It hangs to her knees, braided with bones and bells that clack together in a discordant rhythm as she walks. She wears a robe of woven grass and a nazhcreis skull sits on her head like a crown, the eye sockets fixed with rock crystals that glitter in the starlight. She is beautiful and terrible- this is the nightmare that crofters in the borderlands scare their children with- _“be good, or the barbarian witches will take you.”_

But for Beshelar, more terrible still are the two men that walk to her left and her right. They are hulking where she is slight. Their hair is dyed in greens and purples like winter auroras, belled and braided with lengths of red ribbons. They’ve stripped to the waist, and as they walk closer Beshelar can see spans of corded muscle as well as the white scars that dance over their skin. Hardened soldiers, the both of them.

Panic rises in his lungs- this is not a fight he can win-

But of course it isn’t. It was never meant to be.

He lets out a shaky breath. He will fight anyway. The ritual commands it, and besides, he couldn’t not fight. It’s not in the way he’s put together to surrender to- to- this.

“Champion,” the witch says, and her voice is hollow and ancient. “Come forth.”

His feet move as if they belong to someone else. He steps into the clearing, and then the witch is retreating and the two soldiers are shifting into fighting stances-

“Wait,” he calls out, and the desperation in his own voice surprises himself. “We would- we would know your names, if we could?”

They glance at each other. Some unspoken conversation passes between them in the lift of eyebrows and the twitch of their ears. He has a moment of hysteria, do they even speak Ethuverazhin, what was he thinking, what-

“Creiath Neir,” the green haired man says, giving the warrior honorific after his name. He gestures at his counterpart with the purple sheen to his hair. “Vizhas Neir.”

Vizhas turns to Creiath and bares his fangs in a scowl, muttering something too low for him to hear.

He opens his mouth to ask- truly, what does it matter, but anything to delay the inevitable.

“Begin,” the witch intones from out of the darkness, and the two warriors are stepping towards him and oh, this is going to happen.

He will fight; he will do his people and his emperor proud. He drops into a fighting stance and raises his fists up to guard his face. Creiath and Vizhas step away from each other, sidling around him so that Creiath is behind and Vizhas ahead of him. He stares Vizhas down over his fists, keeping his eye on Creiath in the corner of his vision. They size each other up in silence, the only sound the crunch of the dirt beneath their boots and the bells in the night wind.

Beshelar sees the moment Creiath tenses and is ready when he lunges forward, throwing a punch at his head. He leans back so that the punch passes harmlessly over his head and uses the momentum to turn and swing a kick at Creiath’s stomach. He connects with a satisfying thump, sending Creiath stumbling back to the edge of the clearing.

A flash behind him- Vizhas sends out a kick of his own. Beshelar twists away at the last second and throws a wild punch towards Vizhas’ chest, but he parries it with ease. As Beshelar flails off balance Vizhas grabs his wrist and shifts behind him to clasp one arm over Beshelar’s windpipe. As Beshelar gasps, Vizhas reaches to pin Beshelar’s arms with his free hand. Beshelar kicks back hard against Vizhas’ shin and breaks the hold, gasping as he spins to face Vizhas. He wrenches his fists back up in a guard position but Vizhas doesn’t attack him, he’s missing something, where is-

There’s the shock of pain against the back of his shins and he’s stumbling to his knees. He turns his head to see Creiath readying another kick, and he’s too late to block this one. It catches him in the stomach and he falls to the ground between the two of them and oh, this is how it happens-

They don’t give him a chance to get up; they’re on him immediately. Creiath is shoving his neck into a headlock; Vizhas is grabbing at his legs. He kicks out blindly; there’s a muffled curse and the hands on his neck let go- but then Vizhas is shoving him forward, slamming him into the dirt belly first and knocking the wind out of him.

As he spasms in the dirt, gasping for air, he catches a glimpse of Csevet’s face swimming out of the darkness. His skin is blanched white as bone, his eyes are wide and terrified. He opens his mouth to call out, to reassure him-

But then Vizhas is straddling his back, and there’s a hand on his neck, squeezing tighter and tighter, digging into his flesh. He tries to buck the man off but there are more hands pinning him to the ground, and he still can’t breathe. His protests grow more and more feeble; his lungs are burning and there’s black spots on the edge of his vision. And then, just as he goes limp the hand withdraws and he gasps in a burning lungful of air.

There’s murmuring above him and suddenly he’s being manhandled onto his stomach as if he were a doll to pose and play with. Vizhas’s knees pins his thighs to the ground; his hands are vises on Beshelar’s hips. Above him, Creiath pinions Beshelar’s arms behind his head.

Suddenly: the telltale snick of a knife unsheathing. His veins turn to ice. There weren’t supposed to be any weapons. They’d been clear on that. Had he misheard? Is the true ritual some barbaric kind of human sacrifice?

He opens his mouth to scream just as he feels the cool kiss of the knife against his waist. And then it’s ripping through the cloth of his breeches like a hot knife through butter, just a whisper away from his skin. He freezes, hardly daring to breath. And then it’s done and Creiath is tearing away the shreds of his uniform with a grunt and tossing the tatters onto the ground next to him. He can see them fluttering there from where his head is pressed to the ground. He can just make out the crumpled mark of drazhada seal woven into the fabric. He remembers staring up, awestruck, at the Untheileneise guardsmen that wore that seal when he was a child. The day he’d received the imperial baldric stamped with it had been the happiest in his life.

Fingers, fingers on him. Slim fingers prying his buttocks apart, probing at his entrance. It’s tight; he’s never done this- only thought about it, daring to stroke at his rim in the dark shame of his bed- but never pressed in. Murmurs, and then a different finger, this one slick with cold oil and it’s tracing the lip of his hole, the blunt head and the rough nail pressing in-

He tries to squirm away but there’s nowhere to go; he’s trapped between the vise of the warriors and the cold earth. They pay him no mind; the finger pushes in, inexorable. It feels like a behemoth; how could he ever take something bigger? He writhes away from the intrusion, shuddering, and when the finger halts it’s press and slips back out with a sick squelch he feels a moment of relief.

And then the blunt head of a cock presses up against his entrance.

He clenches; he agreed to do this, yes, but now in the moment, he can’t just let them do it, let this happen.

Above his head, Creiath sighs. “This will go easier if you relax.” So they do speak Ethuverazhin after all, some distant part of him notes. They could talk. They could talk this over, come to some understanding-

Vizhas stabs his cock forward without warning, shoving it as deep as it will go.

He forgets the hand on his neck, he forgets the treaty, he forgets everything. There is only the terror of an animal caught in a trap, the need to run. He lashes out blindly, kicking and clawing at the earth until his nails bleed.

But the Nazh men are immovable.

There is nowhere to go, nowhere to run. His body is not his own, pinned neatly and cleaved in half by the barbarian’s cock. He exhausts himself in his struggling; as his breathing shallows in panic, Vizhas’ cock plunges deeper, branding him inch by inch from the inside out. It’s huge; he feels like he’s being torn apart as his body screams in protest and struggles to accommodate the intrusion. But Vizhas doesn’t stop until his balls hang heavy against Beshelar’s ass.

There’s a high keening in the air. He realizes it’s him.

A low chuckle behind him. “He cries already.”

Creiath lifts his head up, scrapes a fingernail down the track of his tears. When had he started crying? He stares dumbly into Creiath’s eyes. “The price of peace is high. Are you certain you’re willing to pay it?”

“Yes,” he chokes out “Yes.” He is already profaned. His honor is already lost. He will not have it be for nothing. He cannot.

“Say no more.” And He ruts forward, driving a cry from Beshelar. His balls slap against Beshelar’s skin as he pulls back and drives in again. And again, and again, and again.

He fucks him in earnest then, taking his pleasure as he wills it. He rides Beshelar as if he were nothing more than an animal, to be used and discarded at will. And Beshelar, gods forgive him, lets it happen.

He screws his eyes shut and waits for it to end. His head weaves and his stomach cramps. The sound of Vizhas grunting heavy above him, echoes in his ears.

And oh, the pain of it. The tearing of skin, the scream of muscles. He clenches his fist until his knuckles burn, stabbing his nails into bloody half-moons in his palm.

He feels the cold slick of blood between his legs and Vizhas’ thrust pick up in response, fast and erratic.

Finally Vizhas grunts and collapses on top of him. Everywhere their bodies touch is sticky with sweat; everywhere they touch Beshelar wants to take a knife to, slice the skin off. He wants to melt into the dirt beneath him and let Osreain do her work until he’s only bones, places his defilers have never touched.

He barely manages to lift his head as Vizhas pulls his softening cock out and smears the excess semen across Beshelar’s hip like he’s a dirty rag. That’s what he is now. That’s what he deserves. But at least it’s over now. It’s done.

Vizhas and Creiath switch places.

He barely manages a cry when Vizhas enters him, can only lie there as he begins to fuck into the slick of blood and semen in earnest. He wants to die. But his body is no longer his own.

Time seems to slow; he couldn’t say whether he has lain here in his shame for minutes or hours or days. It’s the little things jump out at him- the sound of his own voice in his ears, high and wavering. The burn of cold air against the wetness on his cheeks and between his legs. And beyond, the crumpled fabric of his breeches in the dirt.

Through it all they fuck him. They are nameless and faceless: one man or two or one hundred. They are disjointed: parts rather than men. He feels them in the stab of their nails in his skin, the slap of their thighs against his, the burn and stretch of their cocks in his ass.

The next pulse of semen is hotter than the one before; he takes it like a crossbow to the gut.

And then they’re withdrawing, and he’s curling in on himself, trying so futilely to be nothing, no one. To be nothing would be better than this.

They leave him like this, a mess of semen and tears under the unforgiving night sky. He stares up at the stars, but they are very cold and very far away. He whispers hoarse prayers, wishing for death to come and take him away from his shame, but the moon is behind a cloud: even Ulis has turned away from him.

Footsteps in the dirt.

“Lieutenant.”

No, he cannot be seen right now, not like this-

“Deret, please.” And Csevet is kneeling at his side, a cloth in his hand. And Beshelar, damn him, winces away like some traumatized child or skittish colt. He is not, he is a soldier, he is strong-

“I know thou art,” Csevet murmurs, and something soft and pained flits through his eyes. He raises the cloth again, this time all telegraphed motions, and wipes carefully at Beshelar’s face, cleaning the snot and tears away. It’s cool and moist against his skin. “I think thou art very brave indeed. And I am sure the emperor-“

“The emperor can never know,” he croaks in alarm, grabbing at Csevet’s cuff with shaking fingers. “You cannot- we beg of you, do not tell him of this.”

Csevet is silent as he wipes at Beshelar’s brow. “A heavy burden thou ask of me.”

Beshelar stares at bruises on his wrists. “We all have our burdens to bear. We- I shall have to live with myself, knowing that I was so unmanned, that I allowed my honor to be stripped from me-“

Csevet laughs, his voice on the edge of hysteria. His fingers are shaking. “Stripped from you? You have saved the Elflands. There will be children that will live to have teenage follies and young loves and creaky dotage because of you.”

“You know what I-“

“No,” Csevet hisses, and suddenly he is cradling Beshelar’s head, touching their foreheads together. “What do I know? I know that honor cannot be taken away from thee by another’s cock. I have fought to believe that every day thou hast known me. Wouldst thou gainsay me? Wouldst thou tell me I am wrong?”

The implication in Csevet’s words cuts through his guilt and shame. “It is different,” he finally croaks.

There’s a sad smile on Csevet’s lips. “Not so different.”

He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back into Csevet’s embrace. “How canst thou bear it?” he finally asks.

“Day by day,” Csevet answers. He pauses, runs his hands over Beshelar’s brow with the utmost gentleness. “I will teach thee how.”

 


End file.
